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Monday, October 23

"Are you going to open it?" He stood on the front porch, wet from the rain when he ran over from the house next door. He shivered slightly in the cool autumn night.

The girl turned the damp envelope over and over again. "I'm afraid to."

The boy took the envelope and held it up to the bare yellow bulb. He squinted at it. "Doesn't seem to be much, if anything, in it." He bounced it on his flat palm. "Pretty light too."

She reclaimed the envelope. It was thick, like a manila folder. Old and weathered, from some bygone age. Funny, foreign stamps decorated it. The address was written in an ornate, flowing style of penmanship. "Look," she pointed to the writing.

It didn't list a name. Or an address. It just read "To the One Who Must Know Despite the Risk."

"Sounds like a practical joke," the boy offered.

"How did the mailman know to deliver it to me?" She asked, not really expecting an answer.

The boy was feeling the cold now. "Just open it," he urged. "What do you have to lose?"

The girl wasn't sure, but she had an odd feeling it might be a lot. But it was just an old letter from some faraway place; what harm could come from that?

"Alright." She took a deep breath and slid her finger under the envelope's edge, breaking the seal, opening it.

As soon as she did, all manner of phantoms, evil spirits like Disease, Hunger, Conflict, Rage, Misery, Intolerance and Hatred, flew out of the envelope, wailing and escaping into the suddenly much colder, wetter night.

The girl dropped the envelope which floated gracefully to the porch's floor. Upside down, the return address was readable; it said "Curiosity Killed the Cat and Now It's Doomed the World As Well."

"What have I done?" the girl cried, burying her face in the boy's shoulder.

"I don’t know, Hope" the boy, whose name was Tom Faith, replied, "but I have a bad feeling."

Rod Drake is not a Desolation Angel, a Dharma Bum, a Subterranean nor is he On the Road. Check out Rod's other stories in Flashing in the Gutters, Flashes of Speculation, Flash Flooding, Flash Forward, MicroHorror and AcmeShorts.